These are the means by which God intended man to succeed:  and this discloses the secret of the white man’s success with all of his wickedness, over the head of the colored man, with all of his religion.  We have been pointed and plain, on this part of the subject, because we desire our readers to see persons and things in their true position.  Until we are determined to change the condition of things, and raise ourselves above the position in which we are now prostrated, we must hang our heads in sorrow, and hide our faces in shame.  It is enough to know that these things are so; the causes we care little about.  Those we have been examining, complaining about, and moralising over, all our life time.  This we are weary of.  What we desire to learn now is, how to effect a remedy; this we have endeavored to point out.  Our elevation must be the result of self-efforts, and work of our own hands.  No other human power can accomplish it.  If we but determine it shall be so, it will be so.  Let each one make the case his own, and endeavor to rival his neighbor, in honorable competition.

These are the proper and only means of elevating ourselves and attaining equality in this country or any other, and it is useless, utterly futile, to think about going any where, except we are determined to use these as the necessary means of developing our manhood.  The means are at hand, within our reach.  Are we willing to try them?  Are we willing to raise ourselves superior to the condition of slaves, or continue the meanest underlings, subject to the beck and call of every creature bearing a pale complexion?  If we are, we had as well remained in the South, as to have come to the North in search of more freedom.  What was the object of our parents in leaving the south, if it were not for the purpose of attaining equality in common with others of their fellow citizens, by giving their children access to all the advantages enjoyed by others?  Surely this was their object.  They heard of liberty and equality here, and they hastened on to enjoy it, and no people are more astonished and disappointed than they, who for the first time, on beholding the position we occupy here in the free north—­what is called, and what they expect to find, the free States.  They at once tell us, that they have as much liberty in the south as we have in the north—­that there as free people, they are protected in their rights—­that we have nothing more—­that in other respects they have the same opportunity, indeed the preferred opportunity, of being their maids, servants, cooks, waiters, and menials in general, there, as we have here—­that had they known for a moment, before leaving, that such was to be the only position they occupied here, they would have remained where they were, and never left.  Indeed, such is the disappointment in many cases, that they immediately return back again, completely insulted at the idea, of having us here at the north, assume ourselves to be their superiors.